Ever had one of those moments were you stare at something and just can't figure something out. I couldn't figure out how the side door could come even with the axle and retract with the side door not entering the wheel bay..I puzzled and puzzled until my puzzler was sore..then like a V-8 commercial I hit my forehead and said..the weight of the plane is no longer on the strut you numb scull

also there is a small hinged surface on the aft of the door .the lines are in your 3 view and in that pic you can see that it is deflected .not sure what or why ...i'll talk to our eng. he did some rework/mods to T-38 main doors back in the day.

I built a quick door simulator so I don't have to fiddle with finding the sweet spot when I hook up the strut door on the wings.The rotation point is differant for the door and the strut and that effects door angle as well as link possition so now I can just measure the distances I have on the balsa simulator and should just be able set the ball joints to those numbers and it should be good to go with maybe just a turn hear and there to get it right on.

Were the offset struts not long enough originally or were they too big and you cut them down? Good idea on the working "strut simulator" too, it will make your final gear door assembly much prettier knowing where to attach all the bits from the get go.

Also, just my opinion but I think you are doing the right thing to glass the sheeting. The combo of balsa and 2 ounce glass cloth is going to be a whole lot stronger in this composite structure arrangement than wood just prepped for paint - probably a lot stronger than anything else but at least you will have extra ding/tear/crack resistance for long term wear/tear and heaven forbid any gear issues that may happen along the way.

nice work on the door . yeah i hope the balsa and 2oz are enough...we are kinda in uncharted territory here.not sure how much lighter this will be..cost might be close .if c/n does his in glass we might be able to compare..but i dont see much progress on his ......it is pretty dang cold up here for glass work so maybe in a few weeks he can get going.
most of the big composite turbine kits use 2oz cloth balsa 2oz sandwhich construction . maybe 2 layers of 2 oz. on the OML.this big BVM Fury i have looks like 2 layers of 2oz. a core of roahcell 2mm and a layer of 2oz. ...and it's vacuum bagged.what thickness of balsa did you order?

Thanks Rodger, I will keep the option open to put another layer of 2oz on it.

I had a little bit of 1/16 balsa sheeting laying around so last week I weighed what it would take to sheet half of one wing panel. It looked like about 4.5 oz of balsa sheet. So 9 oz to sheet one wing, 18 oz total. Say maybe 8 oz of glue as a skim coat to apply the sheeting puts it at 26oz to sheet both wings. I weighed the cloth and it is exactly 4 oz per wing so 8 oz of cloth total. Not sure how much to allow for resin but lets say 8oz of resin puts the total weight of sheeting and glassing with 2oz cloth about 42 oz’s or 2.65 pounds.

Just two layers of 5.8 oz cloth over both wings would weight 46.4 oz. if the cloth weighs 5.8 oz per sq yd. as it takes about 1 sq yd per side of each wing panel. Factor in resin and additional layers of 2oz over that and the weight really adds up. After seeing those numbers is when I got online and ordered the sheeting

$46 bucks for the cheap stuff balsa from Tower or If you want to go higher end $86 at some of the finer balsa supliers. So not too bad to sheet a big wing like this.